groundling

groundling Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially
The (vern), (taxlink), or other loaches.
The ringed plover, Charadrius hiaticula.
1922, (w), w:Home of the Gentry|A House of Gentlefolk, translated by (w), London: Heinemann, Chapter XXVI, p. 155, https://archive.org/details/houseofgentlefol00turguoft

In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings.

(..) the ewe called Tiny / Crossed over and touched her, the others turned anxious looks / From sniffing the autumn-pinched leaves of the groundling blackberries.

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise:

when your Groundling, and gallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.

The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.

Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted.

In fact, most of the mob did not know there was such a thing as a director, and it was the actors and the student orchestra whom the groundlings applauded.